Monday, October 07, 2013

No words.

Sometimes something happens that makes you totally reevaluate what you have, and see things through a different filter.

When something awful happens to someone else, the power of the imagination is scary. You can't understand what it would feel like, or what you would do, or how you can help. It's paralysing. Also the disastrous potential - the destruction of the 'it'll never happen' bubble.

The cruelty of not being able to turn back time is hard to get your head around sometimes.

I wonder why I wrote this using 'you' and not 'me'. Clearly I'm talking about me, my filter, my imagination, my paralysis.

I was on the receiving end of this with tumourgate, and always suspected it was harder on those close to me. It's not pleasant though either way.



Walking cliché.

I met someone on the bus the other day and we ended up having a right good chat. She was massively pregnant and I had a tiny Alfred strapped to me so we got talking about stuff. The King's post natal ward, NCT, breastfeeding. Lack of sleep and new babies. 

It was so clichéd. The whole situation was clichéd but worse than that, almost everything I said was a total cliché. 

What has happened to me? I fought against it during pregnancy but now have to accept that almost every cliché I've heard has proved true for me. I am unable to remember anything. Names, where I left my keys, which boob Alfred *just* fed from. I believe my baby is the best baby of them all. I now realise what my parents went through and am ashamed of how I've behaved over the years.

Thinking back to tumourgate (tunagate?) it was the same - I lived the cliché. When an extract of this very same blog appeared in the Guardian, the online version received an angry comment (since removed) about how clichéd I was. Spouting about how lucky I am and perspective and family... very dull but also true. 

I wonder if I'm just identifying with the clichés that apply to me, but it seems that clichés are pretty much spot on in general. I am a walking cliché. Not so long ago that would have pissed me right off, but I'm too tired to care now.